Men's World Cup 2020

[Dr Evil]

Not sure who's doing better, Harimoto or Liam Pitchford. Pitchford's a great announcer. Just wish the other guy would stop talking so much.

 

[GusShnaps]

Harimoto: chos

Commentator: hahaha look at him screaming!

 

[MaLin2.0]

Great game, honestly not sure what to take out of it. Ma Long more composed from game 4 onwards where every game must win. I've always said it, hardest blow to do it's the knock out one.

I think guys like Ma Long when required can go extra gears, unique trait and I've seen it before with players at lower level. Top level Harimoto has to throw heaps more variation, not sure advice coaching was giving him later stages of the match but didn't appear effective.

Hopefully Harimoto learns and can go on and do well at Grand Finals and Macau.

 

[Dr Evil]

High toss serve turned the match around. Have to remember that the next time I play Harimoto.

 

[Musa]

Apart from the high toss service, the other thing that I realized he changed was his standing position on the table. If you notice from the 4:5 on the fifth set, he could now return the wide forehand shots.

 

[fernso2004]

It's ML vs FZD for the finals. Grab your popcorn.

 

[TTHopeful]

Apart from the high toss service, the other thing that I realized he changed was his standing position on the table. If you notice from the 4:5 on the fifth set, he could now return the wide forehand shots.

Good analysis

 

[TTHopeful]

It's ML vs FZD for the finals. Grab your popcorn.

I say ML 4-2

 

[TTLOVE]

Harimoto was dominating 3-1 then I think he lost some focus. Probably he was too excited or he was thinking that the match was already over. Ma Long just play a little better on the last 3 sets but harimoto performance dropped drastically. If He'd maintained his focus he'd have won 4-1.

 

[PlayFast]

Harimoto is quite insecure on the backhand throughout the tournament. Many easy mistakes and also little power. Already in the matches against Gardos and Falck he deliberately refrained from playing the backhand flip and instead pushed the ball. Maybe he has an injury.

 

[TTHopeful]

That final was intense!

 

[Tinykin]

That final was intense!

At times in the match, it was as if they had copied the women's' game. They both played up to the table and bang-bang, bang-bang, boom!

 

[SFF_lib]

So many matches went into the 7th game. What a high quality world cup. I feel that everyone was giving their 130% after a long drought of tournaments.

 

[Konrad Bak]

deleted

 

[bzing]

Would've been epic if Ma Long had won that 1 more point and got to the duce. This seemed very similar to their last match at the Chinese National Championship where Ma Long lost at 7-11 and almost exactly same thing happened there where FZD exploited Ma Long's wide forehand.

And what's interesting that Ma Long in this match being at exactly same point 7-10 in the last game, he did avert the mistakes of being exposed on the wide forehand that cost him the match in the Chinese Nationals. In that point however he did return two very wide forehands.

I could almost read Ma Long's mind right there and see him thinking something along the lines of "ok I'm at the exact same position right now at 7-10 and I'm not going to fail to return wide FH this time" and amazingly he didn't and that seemed like one of the best points of the entire match right there. Sadly the last crucial point he didn't get back.

 

[SIDOFMILLENIUM]

Why wasn't Timo there?